By combining their skills in infectiology and metabolomics.
Researchers have succeeded in describing how, when it infects mosquitoes of the genus Aedes, the dengue virus changes the production pathways of phospholipids, molecules that make up cell membranes.
Tropical, subtropical and now Europe: more than half of the world’s population is now exposed to dengue, which affects more than 390 million people each year1. The only way to fight against what is also called tropical flu: the use of insecticides against its vectors – mosquitoes of the genus Aedes which transmit the disease to the human population. Problem: this is still insufficient to control epidemics. Future control strategies have therefore been oriented on another path: improving knowledge of the mechanisms of transmission of this disease to humans – such as how this virus goes about subjugating the metabolism of its host in order to multiply and spread.
Under the eye of metabolomics
This is the subject of a study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on October 21, 2020. The authors were interested in the changes undergone by cell membranes, entry points for viruses into cells. “ The dengue virus is an enveloped virus: its genome is contained in a lipid membrane similar to that which surrounds the host’s cells, explains Julien Pompon, infectious disease specialist in the Mivegec unit. The virus therefore has every interest in attacking these membranes because it is easy for it to interact with. “ Scientists had already shown2 that when the virus enters a cell, a certain type of membrane lipid, phospholipids, reconfigure itself.
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